Chronicle
of Higher Ed Recognizes Unique Online Lecture Series

BARUCH COLLEGE,
New York, NY (6/24/03)--Three years ago, Professor Jeffrey
Weiss of the economics department began producing digital
video reproductions of lectures in macroeconomics and microeconomics,
the main introductory courses to the department, using the
MacIntosh QuickTime format. Students could get to the recordings
via blackboard on the Baruch website and play back lectures
theyd missed or wanted to review. Because more than 1,000
students per year take those courses, many students needs
were served the hope was not only to expand technological
opportunities and wizardry (always its own motive) but also
to see a notably increase in the rates of students passing
those important courses.

A recent review
of the Fall 2002 data indicates an increase in the pass rates
from the years before the video files were available. Whats
more, now the accounting department is adding the main introductory
accounting course to the list of classes covered.

These efforts,
having garnered publicity and recognition at the technical
level, with much assistance from Apple, have recently been
recognized as well for their educational impact, in a long
article in the online edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education.
The Chronicle notes that, Most colleges that record lectures
do so for the benefit of distance-education students. Baruch
is unusual because it records lectures for some courses that
it teaches in classrooms, and it spends very little money
doing so. The lectures are available online a day or two
[after recording]. Students can also download audio-only versions
of the lectures to portable MP3 players, which many students
have for listening to music.

Whats also exceptional
and undeniably cool about the digital lecture footage
is that the economic department puts in extra material for
the web viewer, background text, bibliographic references,
and links to pertinent material elsewhere on the web, all
of which pop up to the right of the lecture image, so that
students can pause the lecture and delve in greater detail
into the aspect the lecturer is covering at that moment.

According to Mark
Spergel, professor of communications studies and a senior
advisor who worked with Weiss and the economics department
in launching the project, usage was not at first overwhelming.
Like a lot of technology, it started slowly, then as people
got used to it they began using it a lot more. Now its a
very important component in those courses and the approach
is bound to expand.